Our Fitness Blog

How Our Sleep Habits Affect Our Weight Loss Goals

In order to lose weight most of us know that we have to follow a consistent exercise routine and watch what we eat. However, did you know that the amount of sleep you get can also impact your weight loss journey? If you are working out every day and eating a balanced and nutritious diet but depriving yourself of sleep, you may not be getting the results that you want. Sleep is important to help us repair our bodies after an intense workout. We need this downtime for our bodies to recuperate and get ready for our next workout. When we deprive ourselves of sleep we are not only denying our bodies the chance to recuperate, but we are also allowing the chemicals in our bodies to become unbalanced, which can be detrimental to our weight loss goals.

Repair and rebuild

Your body needs a chance to relax and repair itself after an intense workout; therefore, you need to make sure you get enough sleep to allow your body to recuperate. Did you know that the human growth hormone is only released when you sleep? This means that your body's ability to grow new muscles can be hugely impacted by lack of sleep. So, if you are trying to build muscle mass in order to lose more weight then you have to make sure that you get the right amount of sleep. Most of us know that muscle burns more calories than fat, but did you know that the chemical cortisol can also affect your metabolism? You can lower the amount of cortisol in your body by getting the right amount of sleep. So, if you are sleep deprived, you have probably figured out that you will have higher cortisol levels, which will slow your metabolism and cause your weight loss journey to slow or stop completely.

Important weight loss hormones

There have been many studies done on how sleep impacts weight loss. The main findings have been on how the chemicals leptin and ghrelin are affected. Leptin suppresses your hunger, while ghrelin increases your appetite. So, you can see that these two chemicals play an important role in weight loss. As you sleep your body releases more leptin and less ghrelin helping you to lose weight, but if you are sleep deprived, you will find that the opposite happens. Your body will release more ghrelin and less leptin, and the end result will be that you will find yourself hungrier and eating more than you normally would. We all know that this increase in food intake will most likely lead to weight gain and not weight loss, especially if we find ourselves eating late at night, when we are more likely to reach for junk foods and not a healthy snack.

Many of us do not know how much of a factor our sleep habits can be on our weight loss goals. It is important for all of us who exercise regularly to remember that our bodies can not recover and repair without the adequate amount of sleep. We can exercise regularly and follow the strictest diet but never achieve the results that we want without the proper sleeping habits. If we want to maximize our workouts and get the best results possible, we need to ensure that we get enough sleep.